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Geoffrey Baxter for Whitefriars Glass Deep Bowl with Applied Spots, 1969

About the Item

Vintage Midcentury Modern studio art glass centerpiece bowl features textured oval green glass spots on kingfisher blue glass background. It is listed on Whitefriars website as Deep Bowl with Applied Colored Spots #9710, designed in 1969 by Geoffrey Baxter; the bowl also appears in Whitefriars 1969 and 1970 catalogues. It was made in several colors, but this particular colorway, Kingfisher Blue and Green (green decoration on blue background, cased in clear glass, with catalogue code K/G), was in production only from 1969 to 1971, making it rather rare. The bowl is marked with manufacturer's paper sticker, "Whitefriars, Made in England", on the side. Whitefriars Glass was founded in 1834 as James Powell & Sons; originally it was based at Whitefriars in the City of London, but the factory moved to a new site in 1923. During the late 19th century, under the inspired management of Harry Powell, Powells were acknowledged as the leading glassmakers of the Arts and Craft Movement: they made the glass used by William Morris at the Red House, and internationally their reputation was on a par with that of Tiffany and Galle, and their glass was sold by leading department stores throughout Britain, including Heal's, John Lewis and Fortnum & Mason. During the 1920s and 1930s Whitefriars embraced Modernism and became bastions of the Industrial Art Movement; designers at Whitefriars in 1920s - 1940s were Arthur Marriott Powell, William Butler, Barnaby Powell, William Wilson, and James Hogan. The Whitefriars factory closed in 1980. Geoffrey Baxter (1922-1995), one of the outstanding British glass designers of the post-war period, joined Whitefriars in 1954; he had a distinctive and individual voice, and was interested not only in form, but in color and pattern too. Baxter's colorful, geometric designs had an enormous influence on the British art glass movement.